Isle of the Snakes

by Fish, Robert L. ;

  “Fine. That’s for tomorrow.”

  “That’s right, sir. What was the name again, please?”

  “Drury. William Drury.” He spelled it, glancing at the bottle on the bar as he did so. This is idiotic, he thought. This is hopeless. But I have to try something; I can’t just let them take it away from me without even attempting something.…

  “Thank you. It is reserved. Good night, sir.”

  He hung up, dropped some coins on the bar, and walked quickly back to the cab. The counterman did not look up from his labor of slicing bread; the two drinking coffee continued to discuss football. The drunk asleep in the corner remained silently propped against the wall. So normal, he thought bitterly. A block behind, the other car sat silent and ominous, like a blind animal waiting to pounce by sound or smell. He slipped into the front seat beside the grim driver and nodded.

  “Hotel Pernambuco in Copacabana.”

  “And the keys? And my documents?” The driver was seething.

  The man in white handed them over and reached into his pocket. “Relax,” he said in a dead voice. “They don’t want you. They want me.” He counted out money and handed it over. The driver stuffed it into his trouser pocket together with his papers and leaned against the door, feeling the pressure of the wad pushing against his thigh, safe from grabbing hands. “Now,” said the man in white, staring broodingly through the windshield, “when we get to the hotel you will wait in front. For ten minutes. With your flag down, as if you were waiting for me to return. After ten minutes you can go where you like. Is that clear?”

  “You are from the police, senhor?”

  The man in white stared at him silently. “No,” he said at last. “I am not from the police. But you will do as I say, or you will regret it.”

  The driver hunched over his wheel, swinging about the arches of Lapa and down toward Catête. Certainly I will wait ten minutes in front of the hotel, he thought sourly. Like I will wait ten minutes at the scene of an accident so I can spend a month in prison as a witness. The man in white suddenly reached over the sun visor and took down a pencil that was tucked there, fumbled through his pockets for paper, and finally unearthed the receipt for return to Urubuapá. On the back he marked down the name “William Drury” so as not to forget, slipped the paper back into his watch pocket, and returned the pencil in place. The driver said nothing, concentrating on getting this fare delivered and out of his cab as quickly as possible.

  The man in white no longer bothered even to look behind at the car trailing them or even to press against the package in his jacket pocket. There was no longer any pleasure in the contact; he was in a bad spot and he knew it.

  They came through the old tunnel; the gloomy sweating walls and the tiny light bulbs emphasized the desolateness of the hour and the hopelessness of his situation. He shivered. The car behind closed in; Jorge had reached forward and turned on the parking lights as if to advise the man ahead that the game was almost up. Rua Siquiera Campos was ahead and they followed it, turning with the streetcar tracks toward the ocean.

  Traffic began to appear. There is no hour of the day or night when Copacabana is as completely deserted as the heart of the city. The traffic light at Avenida Copacabana was changing to red as they approached; a streetcar and several cars began to inch forward across the intersection in anticipation of the green. The driver eased up on the gas pedal, preparing to apply his brakes. Then, with a sudden movement, the man in white slammed his foot hard over the driver’s on the gas pedal and tramped down.

  The driver swung hard at the wheel, too frightened and startled by the surge of speed to even think, and they shot around the sudden clanging and honking of infuriated motormen and drivers, rocking back into the far side of the street, streaking for the beach. The driver fought to pry his foot loose. His hands were frozen on the wheel; fear caused him to whimper softly in his throat. Death faced them; the street ended at the beach, and beyond the avenue there the squat stone benches that lined the sidewalk loomed solid and frightening.

  But the man in white eased the pressure in time. His large hand reached up to shove the steering wheel around. They screamed into the Avenida Atlantica, rolling madly, bounced against the far curb, and swayed back. Then the inexorable pressure came back on the foot and they were fleeing down the deserted asphalt, the ancient engine pounding, the tires squealing dangerously.

  “Not yet!” the man in white whispered to no one in particular. “Oh, not yet!” His teeth shone in a sudden violent smile. His hand still pressed on the wheel, his fingers biting into those of the terrorized driver. “Changed my mind,” he said in that awful mad whisper of desperation. “You will drop me when we slow down. Do you hear?” His foot forced even greater speed from the laboring engine. “And you will go on and you will not stop. You will go on and you will not wait, do you hear?” At that moment the large foot was lifted; the frightened driver braked, bringing them in a sickening swoop to the curb. The man in white had the door open before they stopped.

  “On your way!” he said in that same tense whisper, and then he was gone himself, his arm flinging the door shut behind him, and was running lightly up the driveway to the hotel entrance. Behind him the driver sat rigid, trying to encompass the frightening, grotesque suddenness of their wild ride. The man in white turned for one instant at the hotel doors and looked back; headlights appeared in the distance down the Avenida. The driver awoke from his coma; he changed gears with a clash and stamped on the gas.

  The receptionist was nodding over the counter; the clock above his slicked head pointed to two-thirty. The man in white took a deep breath and glanced about for the night porter; usually there were two on duty. But the receptionist was alone. It’s a good thing I slipped them, he thought; with just one here they would take me, witness or not. They wouldn’t wait any longer. The receptionist was looking at him a bit oddly, and he straightened his face and then realized that his clothing was wrinkled and dirty from his trip. He ran a hand through his hair and put a hand up to adjust his necktie.

  “Mr. William Drury, please.” He tried to sound apologetic. “I know it is very late, but it is quite important. I’m certain that Senhor Drury will not mind.”

  The receptionist stared at him in hesitation. Nowadays it was difficult to judge from clothing alone who people were, and this was a shame. He could remember the time when, with one glance, he could put people into their proper slot, but today this had all changed. Movie stars staying at the hotel wore tennis shoes and sweat shirts; diplomats competed with industrialists in the exoticism of their raiment. The man was still smiling at him, but the smile was subtly hardening. The receptionist started to run a finger hesitantly down the list of guests and then paused in sudden satisfaction, relieved to be saved the problem of disturbing a guest at this unreasonable hour.

  “I’m sorry, but Mr. Drury hasn’t arrived yet, sir.” He didn’t look sorry; he looked almost happy. “I just remembered. We have a reservation for him starting tomorrow. It was just called in.”

  “You are certain? I understood he would be here today.”

  “Positive, sir.” Now that the need for disturbing a guest at the unheard-of hour of two-thirty had disappeared, the receptionist was friendliness itself. “I took the call myself just a few minutes ago. Possibly his plane was delayed.…”

  The man in white managed to arrange his face into an expression neatly combining uncertainty with vague disappointment. “Very inconvenient,” he muttered audibly, and then looked at the receptionist with the air of one about to ask a favor but unsure as to the propriety of his request. “I wonder … would it be possible to leave a package for him? It’s quite important that he receives it as soon as possible … as soon as he arrives, as a matter of fact.”

  The receptionist nodded with professional briskness. He was in his element now. “Of course, sir. More than happy to oblige.” He glanced at the man in white once again, noting the crumpled suit and the need for a shave, weighing them against exp
erience and against protocol. “Is it anything of value, sir?”

  The man in white smiled. “Just to Mr. Drury, I’m afraid.” He thought of the contents of the package and his smile broadened. The clerk thought he was being taken into a confidence and leaned forward, smiling with him. “Things of a … well, of a personal nature, I should say.”

  “Then there will be no problem, sir.” The clerk beamed; it would be wonderful if all things could be so easily resolved. “We always check the mail for an incoming guest, and I’ll leave it in the mail rack. If you will just write his name on it …” He produced a pen from a desk set on the polished counter with an extravagant flourish, almost as if he had made it appear by legerdemain. The man in white hesitated but a moment and then, withdrawing the package from his inner jacket pocket, printed the name on it quickly and handed it over. The receptionist slid it into the compartment marked “D” and smiled at the other.

  “Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly. “It will be delivered as soon as he registers.”

  “Thank you,” said the man in white and then looked about. “I wonder—is the entrance to the apartments still open at this hour? I left my car on the Avenida Copacabana, and rather than walk all the way around the block …”

  “Of course,” said the receptionist understandingly. “You go out by the pool, past the bar … but I’m sure you know the way, sir.”

  “I do. Thank you.” The man in white smiled, although the smile was strained, and walked out past the deserted bar. The pool, under the bright moonlight, had a slightly oily look, the water pulsing gently under the breeze from the adjacent ocean. The empty wrought-iron chairs and tables looked nude without their cushions and mats; his footsteps clattered loudly on the flagstones that bordered the tiled pool. He forced himself to step lightly and hurried to the apartments that formed a separate building at the far end of the pool area. The door opened to his touch; the porter within, busily washing the floor, glanced at him curiously, but he smiled a fixed smile and walked on through, pushing the heavy door to the street.

  The street was empty. He stayed in the shadows, listening for footsteps on the street, watching the shadows for breaks that might indicate an enemy loitering within reach. There was nothing! He sighed; he had done it! He had actually done it! In reaction his teeth suddenly began to chatter, and he started to hurry up the Avenida, keeping well into the dusky blackness of the store fronts, pulling close to the glass windows, using to every extent the hiding places afforded by the lowered awnings and the indented entrances, hugging the dripping cement walls. But he had not passed more than half a block of the concrete monuments that line the Avenida when he felt the gun pressed viciously into his side and heard the sharp, tense breathing in his ear.

  “Hello, Armando,” said the soft voice, still fighting to control the breathlessness. It was the very softness that frightened him the most, that brought back to him the danger of his position. “Easy now. Calma. We all know how big and how tough you are, but this is a gun. And you don’t like guns, do you, Armando? Just one more of your many errors.…” He felt a small hand slide up beneath his trousers leg and unsnap the knife holster strapped about his calf. For one brief moment he considered turning to strike, to fight; but the pressure of the inexorable gun against his side held him back. Until they had the package they wouldn’t kill. If he resisted, they might feel forced to. And also it was true: he hated and feared guns. Sweat began to blind his eyes. He held his hands half raised; his heart pounded dangerously. The chattering of his teeth increased, despite his distinct effort to bind them.

  “Afraid, Armando?” The soft voice jibed him, even deadlier for the relief of having finally cornered their man. “You weren’t afraid on the island, were you? You weren’t afraid of stealing when you thought you could get clear with it, were you?”

  He forced himself to clear his throat. “I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t what? You didn’t think we’d let you get away with it? Or do you mean you didn’t think we’d find you?” The twist of the gun in his ribs was almost contemptuous. “We caught that cab within four blocks. And he was happy enough to tell us where he left you. Why? Are you surprised? Did you really think you could get away with it? And coming through the apartments! I should have been very disappointed if you had not come through the apartments.”

  The car had swung around the corner and drew up beside them. Jorge turned to the driver, keeping the gun pressed against his prisoner. “Here’s our little friend,” he said to the driver. His relief was apparent in his voice. Luis merely grunted; the thought that they had nearly lost their quarry and his precious package was still pounding at his nerves. “In you go,” Jorge said suddenly, and rammed the gun viciously into the side of the tall man beside him.

  The car door swung open. The man in white hesitated but a moment before succumbing to the painful pressure. His mind was a chaos; he suddenly realized that it was very possible that he was going to die. The thought was sickening and he choked. First they would make him tell, and then they would kill him. And they would not do it swiftly. Not Jorge; he would enjoy the delay in the arrival of the black angel. He would hold him off with every means within his power, but always beckoning him closer.… The bile rose in his throat and he began to moan, unconscious of doing so.

  “Gávea,” Jorge said to Luis shortly. “The beach beyond the golf club.” He turned to the man in white. “Temptation, eh, Armando? Too rich for your blood, eh?” The voice was still soft and cold, but a tiny note of triumph began to bubble behind it. His hands felt the pockets of their prisoner, gently at first, and then with greater urgency. The note of triumph changed suddenly to one of icy demand. “Where is it?”

  Luis swung about, almost hysterical in his shock. “Where is it? Where is it? Do you mean he hasn’t got it?” His hands flew from the wheel, leaving the car at the mercy of inertia for a moment. With an effort he returned his attention to the road. “What do you mean, where is it? You said he’d never let go of it! You said—”

  “Just drive,” said his brother brutally. “Just shut up and drive!” He turned back to their prisoner. “All right, Armando! Where is it? What did you do with it? Who did you give it to?”

  Luis was seething. “I told you, Jorge! I said we should take him! All along I said we should take him! But you—”

  “I said shut up! All right, Armando! Who has it? Where is it?”

  The man in white seemed dazed. His hands were clenched tightly before him; his chest was rigid. He seemed to have trouble breathing. A subtle pain crept up his limbs; his clothes appeared to stand out from his big body as if they wished to avoid contact with his cold flesh.

  “All right,” the other said slowly, evenly. “You know you’ll tell us.” He drew in his breath and let it out shudderingly. “And you’ll die slowly, now. The night’s young; you’ll have hours to die, Armando. And hours to tell us.…”

  TWO

  Those who die by violence in the city of Rio de Janeiro must be prepared to be brought to the Instituto Medico-Legal in the Rua dos Invalidos, delivered either by overworked ambulances when they get around to it or by resentful taxi drivers, worried about additional spots on their stained upholstery, but more worried by the threats of the surly accompanying police guard. The sudden flush of anger and the quickly drawn knife in some dockside bar usually results in a visitor here; the desperate suicide, mixing some common form of germicide with Coca-Cola and throwing it down his throat, will eventually be discovered and brought here; the mangled body crushed against a wall by a truck or omnibus suddenly reeling out of control also finds its way here, usually wrapped in today’s newspapers.

  But if a victim’s papers are in order he is not detained overly long. A proper carteira de identidade, or a driver’s license, or even a work permit with photograph and thumbprint, albeit crushed, or torn, or stained with blood, and he is held only until the details of his final gambit are recorded. He is then free of the huge building and the probing incurious
knives and the multiplicity of paper work and is turned over to any sad-eyed friend or weeping relative ready to receive him. Those who arrive here without identification, however, must be prepared to spend endless hours, or even days, awaiting official decision. True, they wait in an air-conditioned room, neatly laid out in a stainless-steel cabinet; but they wait.

  They do not know it, those who wait—for they are not inquisitive—but they are waiting for Captain José Da Silva.

  Captain José Da Silva, liaison officer between the Brazilian Police and Interpol, brought his red Jaguar sports car to a halt behind a steaming ambulance in the narrow courtyard of the Instituto Medico-Legal, slowly unfolded himself, and got out. He was a tall man of deceptive slenderness, in his late thirties, saturnine in appearance, with a swarthy pock-marked face and the thick mustache of a brigand. His forbidding appearance could be instantly lightened by a puckish smile when he was happy or amused; it could also become even more forbidding by the scowl that could appear with lightning speed when Captain Da Silva was annoyed, a fact both well known and highly respected by the Rio underworld.

  At the moment Captain Da Silva was scowling. Among the many duties attached to his office was the time-consuming one of personally inspecting those bodies that arrived at the Instituto lacking identity. The captain fully understood the necessity for this; several foreign criminals on the Interpol wanted list had been located in precisely this fashion and in precisely this Instituto. The scowl, therefore, was not for the job; it was for the hour. Captain Da Silva had a luncheon engagement with Wilson, his counterpart at the American Embassy, and if he were to spend too much time at the morgue, he was going to be late.

  He tramped up the familiar steps of the white-pillared building and swung open the heavy bronze door. The chill odor of formaldehyde and carbolic acid rose dankly from the lower levels of the building; he frowned down at his wrist watch once again and started down the broad marble stairs that led to the basement morgue. We worry more about them when they’re dead than when they’re alive, he thought grimly. When they’re alive we let them go to hell in their own merry way, but once they’re dead they become statistics, and in our society statistics are one of the things that rate exaggerated respect. These people filed down below are merely constant-inventory cards whose stock has run out to zero. He shook his head at the dismal thought and pushed through the stainless-steel door that led to the storage room.